Ep 263 — Why Your Coaching Business Isn’t Growing (And 5 Things You Must Do Now)
If your coaching business isn’t growing, these 5 marketing strategies might be the reason why. Learn the do’s and don’ts of life coach marketing—and the mindset that actually brings in paying clients.
In this episode, I break down five essential marketing strategies every life coach must master to attract clients, plus five things to avoid that are silently killing your momentum. If you’ve ever said, “I’m doing everything but still not getting clients,” this is for you. You’ll learn how to use consistent posting, email marketing, monthly workshops, and value-driven conversations to build a boutique-style coaching business. Discover the mindset shifts that separate struggling coaches from successful ones, and why quitting isn’t an option if your purpose is calling. This is your real-world marketing roadmap—no fluff, just what works.
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Transcript
In this episode, I'm gonna give you the five things that you have to do to market your coaching business and I'm also gonna talk to you about what you don't wanna do, what you should do, and about the mindset work that needs to be done around every step of the way. I had this beautiful question asked by a client, and I want to give you the answer because I think it's gonna change what you think about your business, how you show up in your business, and what you are doing in your business.
She's actually getting ready to wrap up her coaching time with us in the next couple weeks, and she said, can you tell me what I need to do when I leave you? Interestingly enough, we actually do that in our program. We actually go through what your marketing plan should include, but I understand that when you're working with a coach, sometimes you get to the end and you feel nervous, and it's like, give me the prescription of what I need to do.
So I'm gonna give that to you because I gave it to her and I thought it was a brilliant question. All right, so I'm gonna give you the five things that you could do to market your business. And then I'm gonna share with you the things not to do and to do again, and the mindset around it. So consistency is always going to be the answer in your business.
The consistency that you have right now if you are not doing things, is getting you the result that you have, which is consistently no clients, right? If you are consistently changing your mind, you are consistently going nowhere. You guys with me? So consistently doing the things that I'm gonna talk about will get you traction, right?
Consistency will move you forward. Okay? So if you're consistently posting and you are perfecting that process until you reach your goals, you guys, that's the way you do it. Okay? So here's the five things that I want you to do in your business. I'm gonna go back and forth and talk about those, and then we'll talk about the things not to do, things to do, and the mindset.
Number one is to post regularly. Now, some of you guys might say, I am posting regularly. I'm on social media. I do it. It's not worked. Okay. Look, here's the deal. You have to do it until it does work. You keep doing it until it works. Have you done that? No, I, I know you haven't because I'm still doing that, right?
I'm continuing to do it because I'm always evolving to the next place. That's what you have to do too. There are no successful coaches. Again, I've said this in a recent episode that are not on social media, so as I told this client, regular posting. Many of you guys will post a couple of times, and what I wanna point out to you is that in the beginning it feels like it's a lot.
And why does it feel like a lot? Because it is a lot. You've never put yourself out there. It's a lot emotionally, there's some technical skill involved in learning how to use Canva. There's the writing of the caption, there's the actual scheduling or posting, right?
There's the looking at yourself on camera that might be difficult. So it feels like you did a lot and you did. I wanna honor you and all you did to create those first few posts, but that's not regular posting. Regular posting is posting every single day, okay? Maybe even multiple times a day. And by the way, there is a way to do that without working, you know, night and day on social media. Okay? You just have to learn the skill of repurposing content. And all that. Those are things that we talk about in our coaching program, but for you, just know that you have to post regularly. Okay?
The second thing you have to do is grow your email list. I'm telling you, you cannot have a coaching business without an email list. You can't have a coaching business without social media or email. Okay? So how do you grow your list? What are you gonna do to grow your list? You do not need to be running paid ads.
If you're at the beginning of your business, what you need to do is learn how to do all of these things without spending money on paid ads. Because once you have ads, you want to have optimized your email marketing, writing, right? Your social media, the way that you have sales calls, all those things. So work on your email list growth organically.
What does that mean? It means find ways to grow your list for free. Offer things of value. Do free coaching sessions, host workshops, grow your list for free. Ask people to opt into things. Alright, number three. Once you grow your list, even if there's only one person on it or a hundred people on it, send weekly emails.
People give you their email address because they're saying yes to you. Yes, I'm interested in what she has. Yes. I want to hear from her. If you don't talk to them, my friend, you're missing out. Okay. So write weekly emails and you might be saying like, I don't know how to do it, and I'm not sure if mine sounds okay.
You will never know if you're good at it or if it sounds okay until you start doing it. so just write an email. I call it B minus work. Just go out there and do it.
The fourth thing that I'm gonna tell you that I told our client was, I want you to do workshops every single month. This has been the number one thing that's grown my business for sure, y'all ever heard about my Canva workshop? Plus, I host free educational events every single solitary month, multiple events.
So maybe you're saying like, I'm not ready for a workshop, or maybe I work full time and I don't have time to put this together. Then take an hour of your month and offer open coaching. Okay? Do what it is that you can do. But what I'm talking about is creating two opportunities to get yourself in front of clients every single month, to grow your know, like, and trust, and to grow your email list and just to be talking about what it is you do.
You'll increase your confidence. You'll increase the connections that you have with people. It will also create content for you that you can either repurpose, have somebody opt in to go your email list, that you can use for social media. Lots of opportunities. So two workshops or two events a month.
Then the fifth thing I'm gonna tell you to do is the easiest thing of all that is to meet people, offer to support 'em, whether that's in free coaching sessions, whether that's in, you know, assessments. We do a business assessment call, however it is. Show your value of what you have to offer until you're fully booked.
That's my opinion. So let me recap that for you. Five things. All right? Regular posting on social media, just pick one platform. You don't have to be everywhere. Regular posting. Number two, grow your email list. Number three weekly emails, no matter how big your list size is. Number four, two workshops, open coaching, or any type of events a month to get yourself in front of people.
Number five, meet people. Talk to 'em about your coaching offer to help 'em. I also really wanna point out that while you do all of these things, this is not a checklist to check off. If you are going through the motions and you're saying like, Debbie, I did those things.
I did the social media, I did this, I did that, and it hasn't gotten me where I wanna go to. You know what I'm gonna say first is, well, with that kind of attitude, it probably will never get you anywhere. Okay? You do those things and check 'em off from an inspired place. How do you do that? Daily mindset work.
I'm telling you what, it is your job as a coach, particularly a coach who's leading other people to keep your own head cleaned up. Okay? So you have to look every day, multiple times a day. What do you currently believe is holding you back? What do you believe is holding you back? Then you ask yourself, is it true?
Is what I'm thinking true? Oftentimes, the thoughts are gonna look like this. Like I've tried everything. Is that true? Have you tried everything? Nobody's interested. Okay. What I would ask you is how many people have you talked to? How many offers have you actually made? So this is an opportunity for you to be honest with yourself, really lay out the facts.
At the Life Coach School, they taught us about something called the model, and it's the circumstances, the first thing that you look at, like what is the truth of what it is you're thinking. Instead of having this thought spin around like, none of this is working, it's like, wait a minute. Get real about what it is you've done and how often you've done it, and how many people you've done it in front of, and rate yourself on how good it was, and then look at the facts.
Okay? Then you can decide what you wanna think about that so you can change your mind and think anything you want about what you're doing. Okay? It could be as simple as that if you let it be, alright, maybe one of the things you're gonna find out is that what's holding you back is fear. And what I have to say is like you give the power to fear, okay?
You are the human that is in control. You don't have to give your power away to fear. Fear is just a feeling. As coaches, we know this. It's like we coach people around these things and we don't coach ourselves. This is why I'm saying. You should be your first coaching client. All right? If you notice that you're not doing something in your business, because the truth is you're scared of being judged, you're scared of looking like, you know, impostor syndrome, the thing that everybody talks about, whatever that is, you coach yourself like interesting.
I do feel fear around this thing. Is it true? Okay, so up to you to really look at the thoughts and decide. Here's the other thing is get some perspective. So oftentimes we're like everybody is watching us. Who is everybody? Tell me who everybody is because I'm gonna bet everyone might be your sister-in-law.
Everyone might be a friend. Everyone might be a particular person. I know. I remember everyone was, I kept thinking about people at church, like, what are they gonna think about this coaching thing? Okay. That was not everybody. It was a few people in my church who weren't even watching me. This is the funny thing, right?
They weren't even watching me and who cares what they thought, right? I know the value that I bring into the world. I don't know if they cared or didn't care. It doesn't really matter. So you see, when you look at who it is that you are actually really afraid of being judged by, then you can put it into perspective.
And the truth is your mission, that WHY that makes you cry has to be bigger than that. Is it bigger than that? Okay. So when you're in the beginning, guess what? The perfect scenario is that nobody is really watching you. You're posting, you're showing up on video, and you're like, everyone's watching, and my dear, no one's watching.
Okay? Very few people are watching, and that's beautiful because the more that you do it and the better that you get, the amount of people that are seeing you also rises with your skillset. Okay? So you grow and the audience grows at the same time, so it's a beautiful match. Okay?
No, my dear, that it is not realistic to think that you can meet one person and sell that same person.
Does it happen? Of course it does. Of course it does. There are always exceptions to every rule, but what I would rather you do is set yourself up for success by making the rule something that's more realistic. Okay. So it's like, I need to meet a hundred people to sell this many people coaching, or I need to have 10 consultation calls to land a client, or I need to post 30 days and engage with 60 people to expect to have a consultation call.
I don't know what the numbers are for you. This is gonna be based on your level of charisma, based on your level of communication, have you had an opportunity to learn how to be, you know, somebody who writes good marketing copy? Do you have a niche that you really clearly understand? How well are you representing your brand?
How, um, attractive is the content that you put out? Those things all really do matter. That's why we do what we do inside the Life Coach Business Building School, but here's the deal, make sure that you have your expectations matched, or maybe not even matched, aligned with what they should be.
Okay? So I don't expect to get on a workshop with a group of women and sell every one of 'em. That's not realistic. What I expect is that I will for sure convert some people out of the workshop that I do, and I do every time. But here's the deal. I've been doing it for a long time, like I know how to do that well.
Give yourself the space to learn how to do that well. So you're no different than any other successful coach today, except that you don't have the same amount of people following. You don't have that same know, like, and trust. You're no different than me, okay? Except that I'm further down the road than you.
That's the difference. Like we both have the same opportunity. You have the exact same possibility. Does not matter the niche. You have the same possibility of success that I've had, but you have to put in the time. It's like you have to put in the reps to build up the muscle, my dear. Okay? So you gotta build up know, like, and trust because people trust me, they know me.
The successful coaches that you look to, right? You understand them so you can be that person. Actually, you already are that person, right? The only difference is, let's be honest, the only difference is, is they've again, put in the rep.
So we have blinders on and we only see what looks easy. It's like our primitive brain's job keeps us on the easy path and keeps us safe, so you really are not seeing reality, and I want you to check yourself on this too. This is all part of the mindset work you do is when you see something and you're like, everybody is getting clients but me. Have you thought that thought? Then ask yourself, is that true? Like, do I even know that's true? How do I know how many clients that person that I see online actually has?
Does every person that I went to coach school with have clients? Probably not. Okay? The truth will set you free. So be honest with yourself. When you know what's required of you, you can then move forward. This is why I want to tell you the truth. You can have the most incredible business and it is so close.
It really is. It's so close to where you are. But you can't stop. You can't quit. Okay? There is a tipping point. You have not reached it. And I see it all the time with our clients. Like they go and they build their business. They work with us for a few months, and then all of a sudden it's like one day the ones who kept going and didn't stop.
They have clients and then they have more clients. They have more clients then they launch a group program, but it only happens when they don't stop. Okay? Go forward to that successful you and just imagine how grateful you will be to the you today who does not stop. I had that experience recently where I was coming home actually from church, and I was like, wow, this life I've created, I'm so grateful to myself.
I appreciate what I did. Right? I want you to have that opportunity to be sitting there to stop light and being like, wow, this life I created, I created 'cause I didn't stop. You can do the same thing. All right, so let me recap that for you. There are no quick fixes. Don't look around. Don't redo anything.
Don't start over. Don't buy any fancy software and don't quit. Okay? Keep going. you guys in. I hope so. I hope this inspired you to take action to consistently grow your business, because remember, whatever you are consistently doing is what you'll consistently get.
I would love to connect with you, to be able to assess your business, to be able to help you. There's many questions in all of the things I've talked about today. That's all the work that we do with our clients, where we personally help 'em based on their niche.
We give individual feedback and we help you reach your goals, and we help you not quit on yourself. All right, you guys, have a beautiful day, beautiful week. Keep going. What you have to do, your gift that you have to give to the world is needed. It would not be a gift that you knew you needed to share if it wasn't needed. Okay?
If you needed this help and you needed the transformation that you currently have had that you are passionate about, many other people in the world need exactly what you have to offer. Don't stop. Alright, have a beautiful day. Bye-bye.